His Son's Wedding
by Francesca Monterone
Summary: In the TNG episode "Sarek" Picard tells Riker that he first met Sarek at his son's wedding. Here's my take on that first meeting. K/S


**Title: **His Son's Wedding  
><strong>Fandom: <strong>Star Trek (2009/TNG)  
><strong>Genre: <strong>General / Crossover  
><strong>Pairing: <strong>Kirk/Spock  
><strong>Rating: <strong>K+

As always, I don't own Star Trek.

Blip-chan, this one is for you. I promised you a story, you asked for a TNG-Crossover, so here it is. Enjoy!

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><p><em>Picard: "<em>_I met him once... Many years ago, very briefly at his son's wedding. I can tell you, was quite a moment for a young lieutenant. Standing in the presence of such history... I remember he spoke to me, and I just stood there grinning like an idiot.__"  
>Riker: "<em>_You, tongue-tied?__" _

_Picard and Riker in the TNG Episode „Sarek"_

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><p>Jean-Luc Picard was anything but timid, but right now, he would have given a lot for the ability to become invisible at will. He felt out of place. His dress uniform was itchy and ill-fit, and compared to the sparkle of medals and other signs of valor and praise seemingly decorating everybody else's chest and shoulders, he felt terribly underdressed. He could have sworn that he was not only the youngest, but also the most insignificant person in the room, and he desperately wanted to be ignored. What would he do, if one of those heroes, those highly decorated captains and commanders, those admiral and ambassadors, decided to speak to him? He had nothing to say in return and was sure he would stammer or babble horrible nonsense and embarrass himself in front of somebody who might become his superior in the future.<br>It was terrible. He only hoped the event would be over soon.  
>A sudden jolt, followed by a startled exclamation and a muttered insult roused him from his thoughts. "Ah, dammit! I'm sorry," the man who had just showered him in champagne said, straightening up. Picard looked into a pair of startlingly blue eyes surrounded by a ring of laughter lines. The man wore a Starfleet dress uniform.<br>An admiral's uniform.  
>"Are you alright?" He asked.<br>Picard nodded. The front of his uniform was wet with champagne, but it would dry. "Don't… don't worry."  
>The other man studied him. "I don't believe we've met before Lieutenant…?"<br>Picard swallowed hard. "Picard. Jean-Luc Picard, Sir."  
>"Ah, you can leave the <em>Sir<em>," the man told him winking. "I'm not here in a professional capacity." He extended a hand. "Jim Kirk, groom." Another wink and a grin.  
>Picard gaped. It was impossible not to. Jim Kirk. <em>James T. Kirk<em>. He was a legend. A living legend.  
>Kirk cocked his head. "Getting shy, I see. You know, I wasn't born a hero either. And I don't feel much like one right now."<br>"You… don't…?" Picard asked.  
>"I'm fleeing my own party, hiding from my guests. Isn't it obvious? I don't even know half of these people, and I certainly wouldn't have invited them to my wedding, but..." He shrugged. "That's what you get from being a hero… and marrying the son of Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan." A sigh. "Diplomats and admirals. Spock and I have been bonded for years, but they insisted that we make it official. It's a Starfleet publicity gag, basically."<br>"Oh. I'm sorry that you don't enjoy your party." The next moment, Picard could have smacked himself. It sounded incredibly stupid.  
>Kirk did not appear to mind, however. He gave him a pat on the shoulder, replying: "It'll be over soon enough. And it's a small price to pay considering that I've finally gained their acceptance of my relationship with Spock. You know, dating your first officer used to be a no-no. But then, I have always been particularly good at breaking the rules. Let me offer you a piece of advice – God, I feel old doing this, but then, compared to you, I am… never let others decide what is right and what is wrong. You can choose your own destiny, and don't let them take that from you. Sometimes it takes bravery, and sometimes it takes recklessness – that instinct to leap without looking, as an old friend of mine once put it, but if you stay true to yourself, it will be worth it in the end. You are going to make wrong choices on occasion, bad choices, but at least they'll be your own, not somebody else's."<br>Picard looked at him, feeling slightly awed. The words had not quite sunken in yet, but a word of advice from James T. Kirk was…  
>"Jim!" A resolute female voice interrupted them, as a woman stepped around the corner. She was tall, dark skinned and she had to have been a beauty in her youth, but even now, middle aged and slightly plump, she was attractive. Her large dark eyes, in any case, were nothing short of beautiful.<br>"So this is where you've been hiding! Leaving poor Spock to deal with all those high-ranking old bores…! That was mean, Jim."  
>"Aw, Nyota, you know how much I hate this sort of thing," Kirk complained.<br>"It's your wedding, you dunce. Grit your teeth, suffer through it and think of how nice your husband will look _without _those stuffy Vulcan dress robes he's wearing." Then, noticing Picard, she hastily added: "Um, just forget I said that…"  
>Kirk grinned. "Thanks, Nyota. You just put a really nice image in my mind. Even though it's slightly disturbing that you know what he looks like without them."<br>"I used to be his girlfriend, back in the days when we were young, green and foolish," she pointed out. "Well – when you and I were young, green and foolish. Spock never was." She looked pointedly at Picard. "Who's this?"  
>"Nyota, meet Lieutenant Jean-Luc Picard. Lieutenant, this is Nyota Uhura. She would have been my bridesmaid – at least I wanted her to be – but she said I was being silly."<br>"No, I said you were being an idiot," the woman clarified. "Now come on. Don't leave Spock waiting any longer."  
>Kirk sighed. "I suppose you're right." He turned to Picard. "Come along, kid. I would like you to meet my husband, if nothing else."<br>Picard followed them, feeling slightly overwhelmed. _I must be dreaming. This cannot be real.  
><em>But somehow it was, and somehow he found himself standing amid a group of people, whose faces he knew from news reports and history lessons at the Academy. Kirk stepped next to a man in formal Vulcan dress, whom Picard identified as Spock.  
>"Having fun?" He heard the Admiral whisper. A telltale eyebrow went up. "Hardly. It is too late to run away now, Jim." Kirk chuckled softly, and touched the Vulcan's hand in a brief, fond gesture. "I know, <em>thy'lla<em>."  
>Fabric rustled as another Vulcan joined their little group. His proud, stern face bore a certain similarity to Spock's, but moreover, it was familiar to Picard from dozens of educational files and articles on diplomacy and intergalactic law. He almost held his breath.<br>_Ambassador Sarek.  
>Of course… Spock is his son, obviously he'd be here… but still…to actually meet him, in person, is… unbelievable.<br>_"We were about to send search parties for you," Sarek told Kirk, with a hint of disapproval in his voice. His son-in-law smiled, but it looked slightly pained.  
>"I was not trying to escape, I assure you. As your son has so kindly reminded me, it would be pointless anyway."<br>"Indeed," Sarek replied dryly. "Ambassador Tal'at asked for you. I believe, he would like to hear your opinion on Klingon foreign policy and their latest offer to hold talks regarding a treaty."  
>Kirk frowned, and Picard's history lessons told him that Sarek had just done a surprisingly insensible thing for a Vulcan: Kirk harbored deep-rooted distrust when it came to the Klingons, a feeling that was bordering very close on hatred. Considering that they had killed his only child, it was hard to blame him, though.<br>"Great. There's no conversation I'd rather have on my wedding day," Kirk huffed. He squared his shoulders. "But I'm not here to amuse myself, am I? Don't say it, Nyota, it would be a lie." He shook his head, exchanged a brief glance with his husband, then strode off to meet Ambassador Tal'at.  
>"Father, in your twenty years of marriage to a human, did she not teach you that they place a lot of importance on the emotional aspect of such ceremonies?" Spock asked quietly.<br>"Are you implying that I insulted him? It seemed perfectly logical to tell him of Tal'ats request."  
>"Exactly. It was the logical thing to do, but not the most prudent."<br>Picard cringed inwardly. This conversation seemed way to private for him to overhear.  
>"Jim hates formal get-togethers," Spock continued, "he is obviously feeling uncomfortable, celebrating what is essentially a very private matter with all those people he barely knows and only invited because he knew it would be expected of him. Moreover – and no matter how hard he is trying to deny it – this is a special day to him. He is consciously and unconsciously aware of human traditions related to marriages, so this almost naturally has to feel wrong to him."<br>"Well, in that case, I apologize," Sarek said, sounding faintly surprised. "I had no idea."  
>Spock's lips twitched, and Picard could have sworn that his human half was about to smile wistfully. "He will get over it. Eventually. I shall go and attempt to rescue him from having to listen to one of Ambassador Tal'at's long-winded speeches."<br>"I think I can help with that," Nyota Uhura offered. "You get Jim, while I distract the Ambassador."  
>They took off together, leaving Picard alone with Sarek.<br>The Vulcan Ambassador, after watching his son's and Uhura's retreating form for a moment, turned to look at him, his dark eyes surveying him coolly.  
>"Well…?" He asked after a minute's reflection, "What have you done to get here, young man?"<br>Picard stared at him, awed by the fact that Sarek was actually speaking to him and uncertain what to say in return. It was somewhat difficult to think of an intelligent reply, when you didn't understand the question.  
>Sarek seemed to realize that to. "Everybody who has been invited to this celebration has either done something great in the eyes of Starfleet, or is expected to do so in the future," he elaborated. "But maybe my question was inappropriate and you are a personal friend of Jim or Spock… there seem to be preciously few of those here."<br>_I wish I was_, Picard thought, _but the only remarkable thing I did was to graduate at the top of my class and make Lieutenant by the age of twenty-four. At that age, Jim Kirk was probably already in command of his ship…  
><em>He was still struggling to find an appropriate reply, when Sarek turned his head sharply. A slight commotion had occurred near the great windows reaching from floor to ceiling, and a murmur ran through the assembled crowd: conversations were interrupted and all eyes focused on the couple standing by the windows.  
>Apparently, Spock's means of 'rescuing' his partner were rather direct… or Jim Kirk had gotten bored and exasperated with the talk on Klingon politics and decided to liven things up a bit. The latter seemed somewhat more likely.<br>Picard caught a soft sigh from Sarek. The Vulcan obviously disapproved of such blatant displays of affection in public, but he did not seem altogether surprised.  
>"Unbelievable," a disembodied voice hissed.<br>"Yeah," another voice drawled close to them. Picard looked up to see the speaker, a tall, slender woman with long dark hair. "For shame! Kissing his own husband at their own wedding, how could he…?" Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.  
>The whispering rose, but there were also suppressed chuckles mingled with it now.<br>"Joana," somebody warned mildly.  
>But the woman was not to be placated. "All those uninvited time travelers can take their homophobic attitude right back to the nineteenth century," she declared.<br>Sarek turned to face her, and Picard could have sworn the Vulcan looked amused now. "Joana McCoy," he greeted the woman, "There can be no doubt; you are your father's daughter."  
>She smiled. "And I'm proud of it, Ambassador Sarek. As proud as I know you are of your son."<br>"Well, it does seem that you are both following in your fathers' footsteps," Sarek replied, looking pointedly at her blue Starfleet uniform.  
>"In marrying a human and becoming a doctor…? Yes, I suppose so. It could be worse, though, couldn't it?"<br>"Indeed," Sarek replied and Picard decided that this was the perfect opportunity to quietly slip away, as they were now engaged in a conversation of their own. He felt that he had had enough memorable encounters to last him for a while. He would certainly not forget this evening…

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><p><em>Anybody keeping track of the dates will have noticed that they do not match this story. I tentatively placed the wedding about 2329, so Picard would be 24, having left the Academy in 2327. However, that would actually make Spock 99 (he was born in 2230). Jim would be 96. There's nothing to say against people getting married at that age, but I don't think they would have waited that long. So basically, the dates are wrong. But hey, it's Star Trek, right? Parallel universes, wormholes and stuff. I just made Jim and Spock a bit – well, actually a lot – younger, and there you go. After all, that's what fanfiction is for, right?<em>

_As always, I would love to hear your comments. Any suggestions, complaints, random outbursts of happiness…? ;)_


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